Girls and Boys

[ninety6tears]

Hey, all. Sorry this post is pretty late in the day - We had some connection issues at the house earlier :(

Today we're going to talk about Pilots and Gender Some time over a year ago was when I first became aware of this trend throughout different fandoms of genderbending characters, creating an AU in which one or more characters has

Comments

[rachelindeed]

Yeah, I also thought of the way the show's sexual politics are perceived. I think that if Kara were male and Sam were female their relationship would invite accusations of sexism, given that it would portray a man openly cheating on his wife but continuing to use her for sex without apologies, and the woman sticking with the relationship in the belief that eventually her availability and unconditional support would convert her husband into feeling real, committed love for her. I think it could have been labeled sexist as well as unhealthy. I think many people's problems with Dee were similar, in the way she was portrayed as always "standing by her man" and investing in a bad relationship in the hope that it would become good

[ninety6tears]

One of the things that made me the most uncomfortable thinking about this was how an audience (probably including me) would react a lot differently to Kara's infidelity. It's strange, cause in some ways and some contexts I think people are unfairly more forgiving of men for sleeping around, and in other contexts more forgiving of women.

[swamp_ariadne]

jumping into the fray, i think that if the genders had been reversed the PLOT itself might have still come to the same point. Maybe it isn't Kara/Starbuck that cheats, maybe it will be Apollonia that would not be able to commit emotionally. It would sort of make sense - Apollonia would be the one who doesn't believe in divorce because it would be dishonorable or whatever. It would have been interesting to see Kara/Starbuck (will Starbuck retain his old name from the previous series? i guess he will) as an emotionally damaged/vulnerable man. Because of the gender politics of this generation the writers may write him more emo and less physically violent (he's probably still a drunk - but not at Saul Tigh level). this is a difficult bit of meta to process - but i think that both of them would still be BAMF.

[ddt73]

I don't know, I have plenty of hate for both Dee and Sam, I'm not so sure it would matter if their sexes would switch at least for me. Though I do think their perceptions in general would be different overall.

If it was a male Starbuck dumping a female Apollo it would have felt cliche, but switching the "usual" roles made it work.